Our train from Vienna was a 4 hour affair, we arrived in the central station, which was deceptively modern. Our packs were still quite heavy and we had no idea to get to where we were going - thank god for free WiFi that can be stolen from every Burger King, Mc'Donalds and their dog. I had the address of our accommodation and could find it on my google map so I was fortunate enough to see a local train station very close by to our hostel. I still had to ask at the info booth how on earth to get there. We were given directions to the Prague regional train station - Masarykovo nádraží. We walked out of the station and through a small park in the direction of the other station. We were suddenly greeted by cobbled streets, decorative pavements, tall and beautifully trimmed buildings, a rich variety of pastel greens, reds, pinks and other colours on the facades. Around one corner along the way, we saw a gothic tower in the distance. We knew Prague wasn't going to be boring.
Reaching our train station was easy enough although it was a different affair to the main station. Not quite what I'd expect, but come to think of it in hind sight it fit the bill of an old ex-communist platform - concrete, weeds, broken windows and the occasional devotional statue of a politician the people either cared about or were told to care about. In hindsight maybe it was the man the station was named after as apparently it is named after the founder of Czechoslovakia.
Our train was rickety and slow, made plenty of ker-klunk-chunk noises when turning corners and took 26 minutes to cover 13 kilometres. We had 3 stops before ours - Bubny, Dejuvice abd Velaslavin. At every stop the platform conductors would trot out in their red hats and wave the trains on. We found it very cute. We arrived at Ruzynè station and found it to lack actual platforms, just gravel and weeds. We picked our way through the tracks and toddled down the road to our accommodation: The Sports Hostel Scandanavia. We passed a connected pub and restaurant before reaching the reception door. The receptionist was a middle aged portly lady who managed to find our booking, however when we paid the remaining fee ( im getting sick of only paying deposits given our slipping financial climate) which worked out $20 more than my estimate - so is the Czech way we are told that they will do anything to earn a dishonest crown (fortunately, we experienced nothing like it since in our 3 weeks stay in CZ). We could hardly argue the point with our language barrier and rather frank need to hit our room and have a shower because as to our surprise we were experiencing something that resembled an Australian summer day.
Our room was small, had an over-large wardrobe, an over-small table, bar fridge (nice surprise) and two single beds that were not made up of mattresses but cushions approximating to be mattresses, fundamentally being rather uncomfortable as the heavier parts of your body made individual parts separate and the edges dig into you. The two beds were separated by the over-large wardrobe making it apparently impossible to put them together to make a double - this was promised in the booking. The bathroom was a whole other affair with mouldy walls and shower curtains and rather curiously the basin was in the shower cubicle.
It was about 3pm and by this stage and I was keen to see the town. We also needed to find some dinner so we opted to walk in - a serious miscalculation on my part as I should have realised that 13km on the train is also 13 km by foot. I used the maps on my phone to find what seemed to be the most direct route and we set off through back streets to reach our destination. The first highlight on our trip was a prison which was 2 blocks away from our base - we were not concerned though as it didn't seem in use. We later found that it was a correctional facility. A few more streets along, we encountered a large forest which was walled off on all sides. We found an entrance and walked through. It was rather like the banks street reserve, and we enjoyed it, but decided not to venture in after dark. It turned out to be a detour and in hindsight not an option in the future given the length of our walk in.
Czech Streets
After about 45 mins of walking we hit the 2nd big park on the way, an extremely large 3km park with well maintained grounds that is used by roller bladers to skate around in. We walked past a bank of porter-loos and wondered what that was all about. By this stage we had been walking for more than an hour and as we later learned along a rather less efficient route and we were starting to feel rather thirsty in the heat. We didn't want to take any water from the basin of the hostel as it tasted bad and looked worse. So it happens that it would still be some time before we found anything that would give us water, unknowing of this we pressed on. Another half an hour of walking after that park lead us past some large out of use sporting stadiums, soccer fields and the like, some complex that is either T.V or radio communication related. Then finally some elaborate viewing platform with a water feature around the base that the locals seemed to like dipping their feet in.
View from The Sports Park
We reached the final stretch which was to be heading through some official looking park like some sort of royal gardens and promptly found it closed to public for the foreseeable future. This was distressing as consulting the map we would have a long detour around. Having been on the road in excess of two hours and at thrist-maximum the situation was getting a little desperate. We decided to take a punt at bypassing the park along one of the longer edges in hope of finding a way through. After another 10 mins of walking we saw signs for a restaurant and followed them. We passes a nice little rose garden and started coming down a set of winding paths to eventually find a small cafe with a wonderful view of Prague castle, river and old town. We managed to buy water from the cafe at what we found later to be criminal prices of 60 korouna/crowns for a half litre bottle and we both needed one so $7 aud later we had some life giving water. We took a break to drink it and pushed on down towards the city. It was only another 15mins if walking through the winding gardens to reach the banks of the old town.
The River, and Charles Bridge
We walked along the cobbled streets to the river and gaped at the most beautiful river I'd ever seen, complete with old bridges, dividers at different water levels, water falls and swans. We walked along to the famous Charles bridge and crossed its span, taking in all of the old stone statues and street vendors peddling souvenirs. We entered the old quarter and were lost in both super touristic nature of all of the restaurants and pubs and the beautiful narrow cobbled streets and buildings. We were completely lost but had a mission to get a famous Prague sausage for dinner, after much wandering Jac saw a familiar avenue and we set off to what was the centre of town. The sausages were really, really good. With mustard, onion and sauerkraut. By this time it was getting late. Jac was determined to show me a large photo store that was the best in Prague so we hunted for it and eventually found it. Luckily it was next to a Billa supermarket so that solved another problem - water. We had found a public fountain to fill our bottles in but that was only two small bottles and if we were to be walking in, plus survive the night and morning to come we would need more than those two small bottles. The Billa had some surprises in it. Fresh bread that looked edible as opposed to Australian supermarket bakeries was a first point, others included a carton (24!) of beer for aud $5 and 1.5 litre bottles of water for 6 crowns each. We stocked up on some fruit and breakfast stuff and headed to the train station. The trip home was similar to the trip on the train earlier in the day and when we got home at around 11, all we had on our minds was a shower and bed.
Czech Shop Display
The next morning we had breakfast and went for a little bit of an explore, hoping to find a supermarket in the nearby area, but only succeeding in finding an OBI, which I a massive hardware store. On our return home we found a massive mineral specimen and rock show room. We couldn't believe it, being jewellers and all having this on our doorstep. The collection was humongous, 5 large rooms of trays and trays of mineral and rock samples. It was like a kid in a candy store situation for an arts jeweller. We took some notes on what we liked and resolved to visit again to make some purchases.
Having no photographs of the Mineral Shop, this represents what else we found.
We took the train into town today, yesterdays murder walk was still fresh and we wanted to get into town to have a full afternoon of sight seeing. The weather was hot. The station was hot. We needed tickets so we knocked on the station window and were blasted with wonderful cold air as the tiny window opened and a lean, young station master greeted us. We loved this guy, he takes his job so seriously. We bought return tickets for 77 Kc and waited for the train. Our train journeys usually give us a chance for a card game, usually monopoly deal – a card game derivative of the friendship ruining board game itself. It is still unfair.
A colour version of the same station!
Arriving in town coincided with hunger, so we started to look for some food. We stumbled across a small market in the middle of town and indulged in some more sausages. We are loving the quality and flavour of Czech meats. We sat in an old square and soaked up the beauty of this city.
After some exploring (and camera hunting) we decided it was time to head home. We filled our water bottles and I mapped a route that looked reasonably direct. God I was wrong, it was a steep, windy path that was taxing on our tired bodies and ended up taking more than the 3 hours a walk in would have taken. It was really dark by the time we were approaching home and as we approached a spooky dark bend, we noticed a small glow in the bushes... then another. We were suddenly spotting fireflies left and right. It was quite magical, I have not seen fireflies since I was very young.
There was alot of walking involved over the next few days. We eventually discovered the local super market called Lidl and stocked up on a few things; mainly breakfast ingredients (eggs bacon, bread and butter) but also some dinner things too like pasta, some veggies and the like. We try to buy versatile ingredients so that we can make a meal for almost any time of the day. Usually capsicum, fresh leaves, salami and cheese, of course tomatoes for Jac too (I am a tomatophile and thusly curse both my phobia of it and it's popularity). Our first dinner at home was inspired by my friend Myles a bit as we saw a can of baked beans in chilli sauce at the super markets, so those along with cheese and veggies became a chilli bean dip that was quite nice given we only had pretty basic things to cook with. The kitchen contained a dingy saucepan, frypan, microwave and one hot plate. Lucky I bought some folding swiss knife style camp cutlery along with a full size pocket knife as many utensils were missing. Other meals of the stay included fantastic breakfasts consisting of eggs, salami, bacon (bacon here is thin, a bit like shaved cured ham or speck) leaves, mushrooms, olives and panfried bread. We also ate alot if pasta on our nights in and frequently made sandwiches for our days out.
We did a bit of sampling of the local produce that Samuel likes: chips, chocolate and beer. There are no salt and vinegar chips here; instead there are paprika flavur (capsicum) which is interesting. We have had those a few times. The chocolate is pretty nice, but pretty much all from Germany. The beer is fantastic from Czech - proud and strong beer culture there. Cheap too.
A few days into our stay we met up with Yana, Jac's Volda flatmate who is Russian but lives in Zlin, a Czech village. She had her boyfriend Ondrej with her and a friend of hers that we didn't know we were meeting - Egor.
Egor is Russian. He is extremely friendly and speaks excellent English. He works as a programmer for a Czech advertising firm and we discovered that he lives very close to us. We all went to an all you can eat sushi train which cost only 260 Ck a head (easy formula to convert to aussie dollars is cut off one digit and divide by two) so thirteen dollars each. We stuffed ourselves silly and got to know our new friend. Yana and Ondrej had to leave in order to get a train home so off we all went. We parted ways with Yana and Ondrej but Egor stuck with us seeing we lived close by. We made our way to his place then said good night, we walked through firefly alley again but had no luck this time.
Not being party people (Prague is super famous for pub/bar crawling) we usually spent our nights watching a movie or some internet T.V. The internet in our hostel technically isn't for private rooms but we managed to pick up the signal with our laptop's stronger antenna, so this allowed us to set up a stream in the morning and have it ready for the evening. One of the first things we cached was Goldfinger, had a good laugh watching that.
There were a few days spent in, mainly to organise parts of our trip to come like much of our German leg. These days usually resulted in holiday relaxing, going for walks and sneaky trips to the shops for treats. One of our walks around the neighbourhood was particularly nice as it had rained the day before and everything was green and fresh looking. Usually by the time we started walking, after about 10 minutes the proper suburbs were surrounding us and they were quite nice and maintained.
On the first Saturday we spent in town we discovered that the Pargue United Islands International Music Festival was on in "the sports park". We hit the music at around 1pm and enjoyed some gypsy style music before heading to a dance group from Sweeden I had randomly found on the internet eons ago (slagsmalsklubben!) . We arrived just in time to hear them play the song I knew which wad great. We finished the festival with an American blues singer called John Primer, he was a real character. At this point it was about 8pm and since we were 2/3 the way to the city we decided to hit up a small Vietnamese place we found in town. We usually get 2 mains, an snacky thing like some spring rolls and pint of Staroppen beer for 170 Kc - pretty good I think.
One day we went for a wander through town which is nice in its own right, however we stumbled across the Leica gallery, Prague, which had a fantastic exhibition of black and white photographs by Jacob Sobol on at the time. I was later lucky enough to pick up a Leica catalogue for a camera which had most of these photos in it! Surprisingly, just around the corner we found a store jam-packed with old cameras, telescopes, lenses and the like, that was a small wonderland.
Another day we just walked from the middle of town through the inner east suburbs. We stopped in parks and sights like churches and small shops. It was nice to stroll the cobbled streets and we even found some nice dogs along the way. We ended up at Jacs old hotel from her last visit and ate at one of her haunts. This part of town was the long stretch of cheap and interesting places to eat, bars and knock off shops.
We were seeing posters around town for the Prague Biennale and when we did our research we discovered that it was on during our visit. So one day we decided to go and see it. Getting there was quite a trip and actually took us past Jacs old hotel again. The site was an old disused commercial train station. It was hard to find but well worth it. The exhibition was put on in the cheap and reminded us heavily of QCA student exhibitions, we loved it and was a serious highlight of the trip. Later the same day, we were due to meet David and Ivana for another all you can eat sushi fest. We enjoyed the food more than the last place and it was nice to see our friends from Volda again. We would be seeing them again in a week as they were our Pardubitce hosts and medieval friends. Medieval is significant as back in Brisbane I have been a member of various groups, mainly KEG and KOLR.
We visited Prague castle and took a walk around. It was very well kept and didn't really feel like a castle, more like a royal estate. The cathedral in the middle is massive and ornate , it looks more like a castle than the castle itself. It is nice inside the walls of the castle with the servants quarter devoted to historical crafts and small shops. Very busy though very touristy. After the castle we were close to a restaurant that was recommended to us to experience some good traditional Czech food. We arrived and it pretty well resembled a pub from anywhere really, the sort where you get decent food at a decent price. Jac ordered potato soup in bread, which was massive and I had pork bits in gravy with dumplings and cabbage. Both were very tasty, especially with a big stein of Kozel dark beer. We had along walk home (past Olympus optical hq- Czech) which resulted in a good sleep.
By this stage of the game, our days were becoming few. Jac has been inspired by her visit to Norway and the visit to the Leica gallery to start taking photographs with a serious camera, so we started a little mission to find Jac her own film SLR. This was fortunate as Prague was a goldmine for cameras. After a through search, which turned up some options from just about every brand, Jac chose a handsome all black Pentax ME Super. I was very approving of this choice as I am a massive Pentax fan. It is just the right camera to teach you how to use it, and help you out with an automatic shutter when you need it.
The last special thing we did in Prague was meet up with Egor one last time. He was pretty busy until now so we were not sure we would see him again. We met in the late afternoon and headed to a bar that he wanted to show us. It was called the railway bar. We only went in for some drinks, however it was more about the experience of having things served by model train! Make an order, then it shows up, dragged along by good old Thomas the Tank Engine.
He also took us to have some Czech food at a good old back street pub. Some Chicken Schnitzel and Fried Cheese Schnitzel (apparently a famous Czech food, although we are told the Czech are embarrassed of this reputation). Afterwards, we took a long walk back into town and went to the hard rock cafe Prague for some American Brownie. We had a really great night. When we headed home, he needed to walk his two old Labradors, one of their names I forgot and the other was called Dunya. Jac asked him if they speak Russian, he replied with "Of course".
He walked us home with the dogs. Along the way we headed through some long grass and were treated to some more fireflies. This was still terribly exciting for us! We parted ways at our hotel and promised to look him up when we return one day.
The next morning, we were off to Pardubice.
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